Yesterday I went again to Brighton
from London, but without my bike this time (as it's been
stolen...). I followed the roads, mostly the A23 and the B2036. I
had to be at the same time the organiser, the volunteers and the
runner. Which means that I had to navigate, to find some water on
the way and ... to run !
I started from Westminster at 7am (official
Big Ben time). I
ran through
Brixton,
Streatham,
Croydon,
Purley and
Coulsdon (km 23) before I started to see
the countryside. Panoramas from
Farthing Downs were pretty
nice. Then
Chaldon,
Redhill (km 35) where I bought my
first water refill. From this point I started to swap between short
walks and longer runs.
Salfords, marathon in 4h02,
Horley (km 44). I started to feel a bit tired, so I had a
short rest in a meadow nearby the road. Some policemen stopped to
ask me if I was ok and then chatted a bit. This comforted me again
to think that British policemen are much kinder that the French
ones (no relation with recent events).
I continued to
Crawley and started to have cramps after
that. Immediately doubt took my mind, I looked at the map where was
the next train station, etc. But, as often in ultras, after 10
minutes walking I felt fresh, running, enjoying the landscape, and
never thought about withdrawing again !
Balcombe,
Cuckfield,
Ansty. On the narrow
roads surrounded by hedges, I had to be very careful with cars, and
once I was so close to the hedge (the car didn't leave me much
space) that I didn't see a branch and fell down. Nice bleeding
knee. At
Burgess Hill someone stopped to ask me if I was
fine. Then
Hassocks and
Ditchling, just before the
ascent of
Dictchling Beacon (150m elevation gain on a steep
road) where I walked more than I ran. Pain in the legs started to
increase and the descent to Brighton was not very pleasant. Finish
at
Brighton Pier at 4:42pm, just before the night.
I took 9h42 to complete these 90.5km (GPS: 88.6km) and expected
around 10h. That's an average speed of 9.3km/h or 4h30 for a
marathon, not too bad. During
the
official race, the time limit is only 9h50 (but the route is 1
or 2km shorter).
I got a nice GPS track of the route, although I miss the end
because I ran out of batteries. I just acquired a couple of
waypoints from Hassocks, not very precise. I might release a couple
of graphs later on.
This morning, after a not-so-good night, my legs are very stiff
(not to say painful) especially while going downstairs or sitting
down. Even my upper body (abds, shoulders, arms) is quite stiff.
Funny to think that I felt better after 35h30 on the UTMB... But
yesterday, however shorter, was much more intense.
